


Your Virtue's My Vice

by nuitdemesreves (mesohorany)



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Armie is so in love Jesus Christ, Extreme Flirtation, Extreme Makeout Sessions, Foreplay, Intoxication, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, SO MUCH TEASING, Slutty Timothee, Smut, Teasing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-03-23 07:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mesohorany/pseuds/nuitdemesreves
Summary: There has never been a time in which Armie has ingested copious amounts of alcohol that he has not committed at least one act, however small, that has not fallen under one of three categories: (1) overly bold; (2) certifiably insane; (3) regrettable. AKA the cast goes out clubbing, Michael, Esther, and Amira are enablers, and Armie had no idea Timmy could dance like THAT.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annaliz1220](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaliz1220/gifts).



> Somehow, somewhere, my obsession with Elio and Oliver evolved into an obsession with Timmy and Armie, and all kinds of drabble-y things began to take shape in my head. I really have this thing for getting (classily-ish) slutty in a club because there's just zero reservation in that particular kind of darkness and it's really freeing and I just love it. I have no idea how many chapters this one is going to be but I can say for certain that there is going to be a lot of smut; not sure if much angst is going on here because for this scenario they're so raw and they're just ready to be with each other and, y'know, get it on. Realistic? Probably not, but who's keeping track? ;)
> 
> In my head this (disclaimer: of course, fictional, I think ;) ) story happened probably a month-ish into filming. 
> 
> I credit annaliz1220 for encouraging and stoking my obsession with these lovely boys - this one's for you, girl.

There has never been a time in which Armie has ingested copious amounts of alcohol that he has not committed at least one act, however small, that has not fallen under one of three categories: (1) overly bold; (2) certifiably insane; (3) regrettable. He is thinking absently of his track record now as he licks an ethanol-saturated cherry from the bottom of his glass, shivering against the ice on his tongue, wondering how, how, how he is going to escape this night without a criminal record scathing the prep-God image that he has successfully portrayed thus far in Crema. 

“More shots?” asks Michael over the hullabaloo, and Armie practically yelps, “yup,” before he slams his drink down and follows the older man through the serpentine squirm of the crowd. Somewhere on the dance floor, Timothée is doing that irresistible thing where he fucking _exists_. He occupies a space that Armie’s mind can’t stop rushing to, that sirens his thoughts like a lovelorn sailor to a lethally striking mercreature. There within that space lurks the danger that Armie knows he must try to avoid, Timothée with his frail fairy bones and his perfect-circle polychromatic eyes, the skewed angle at which all of his slightly too big shirts rest over his chest. _Teenager_ , his body screams, _innocence._

But,

 _Come to me_ , his faultless mouth yells in soundless harmony with his lidded eyes, _let me_.

Armie is still trying not to dwell on what exactly Timothée means by _let me_.

Esther is at the bar in her cute little pastel dress with her wild-wolf hair all over her face and she yells in delight when she sees the two of them approaching. It is early for an Italian summer, only around one AM, and she has a bet going with Armie and Timothée about how long Michael and Amira are going to last. So far, they are stunning everyone by maintaining some of the most intense enthusiasm in the group, intoning _let’s go here,_ _stop yawning, have another drink, you lightweight_. It has now been Michael’s suggestion three out of four times to obtain more alcohol, and his zeal is beautiful. They make the young ones’ gnawing pushed-back fear of age seem ridiculous and inconsequential.

Armie smacks up against the bar next to Esther and she grins at him.

“Where is Timothée?” She asks of him in that luring rasp of an accent. There is something diamond-like in her eyes that is unsettlingly omniscient and Armie finds himself fearing the knowledge of her gaze. Despite himself he whirls to inspect the sardine-can throng of the dance floor behind them, where not a hint of the dark-haired boy can be glimpsed. He plucks at the hem of his polo and hems and haws.

“I think, somewhere” he says, throwing a vague uncaring hand towards the drove, “out there.”

“After this, we will find him,” announces Esther throatily, as on Armie’s other side Michael magically procures a fistful of sloshing shot glasses. 

“Well you don’t have to, because I’ve brought him,” says Amira, appearing theatrically in the midst of the group with a sweating, vivid Timothée at her heels. Armie both notices and tries not to notice that his buoyant curls are plastered to his forehead with perspiration, that his cherry mouth is hinged sensually open as he regains proper oxygen balance. “We can’t take shots without him.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Amira,” says Michael, grinning as he gifts one of his prized liquid possessions into Timothée’s long fingers. “And I wholeheartedly agree. What have we not yet toasted to?” 

“This song,” says Timothée, grinning as he swipes his free hand through his mess of raven-colored waves, and they all scream heartily, “ _to this song!”_ before letting the bitter warm burn of alcohol pour into their cores. It feels like magic; it feels like the heat of summer lives in their skin. It feels like this adventure is never going to come to a close. Armie wants nothing else, ever, just this club and this music and all of them in a circle, alive, brilliant, radiating camaraderie.

“This song,” says Michael, laughing when he comes up for air. “What _is_ this song?” 

“I have no idea,” says Timothée, and he is laughing back. Nineteen years old and legally drunk in public in the most beautiful city in the world and happier than he’s ever been. His eyes flick to Armie’s and he grins, huge so his the skin around his eyes stamps out the crow’s feet that will eventually arrive with age, and Armie thinks _I am so in love with you_ not for the first, third, or even tenth time.

Because the truth is that he _is_ ; he is disgustingly in love. It doesn’t matter if he’s swimming in an ocean of alcohol or stone sober standing in front of Timothée in a wash of that otherworldly midday Crema sunlight, he is _in_. His. _Feelings_. Concurrently he hates himself and clings to the joyride of dizzy emotion because it makes him bloom canary-yellow and bursting like a sunflower in deepest summer, black on the inside.

He has not felt like this in a long, long time. His emotion is so high, so uncontrollable, that he dreads the day that his wife will next visit because she _knows_ him, and without question she will see. Armie cannot suppress his heartsighs; his thoughts are inscribed in his eyes, on the tone of his voice, engraved on his forehead. He understands that this is his deepest flaw, understands that his open face is the explanation for why Esther looks at him with that awareness. She knows that he is tempestuous inside and she kmows that Timothée is the cause.

“We will go to dance,” announces Esther, and unconsciously Armie looks to Timmy again, catches the flare of fond amusement in his club-darkened eyes. Esther’s thickly accented English is arguably her most engaging trait.

Armie surprises everyone when he is the first to acquiesce. Over the days spent in Crema he has gained notoriety for his reluctance to inhabit a dance floor and – when he is convinced to get out there, usually by an impish, cajoling Timmy – his _white dad at a barbecue_ moves. But today he is valiant; today, he spearheads the brigade, fully aware that everyone else is giving each other raised eyebrows regarding his uncommon choices.

About two minutes after they establish a little glowing space on the dance floor, those shots smash into them like a baseball batter nailing a grand slam out of the park. In mere seconds, each member of the party goes from pleasantly tipsy to rip-roaring, and the atmosphere starts to _hum_. Everyone is more or less equalized on the alcohol spectrum but Armie and Timothée are a bit further along, having each imbibed an extra shot before meeting the rest of the crew for their midnight rendezvous. The part of Armie’s brain that cares about what other people think of him, about who can see him, about what a nimrod he’s probably making of himself, abruptly shuts off. He is incandescent.

Dark air moves like the rustling of raven wings around them, music both filthy and seductive curls through their eardrums and laces through their fingers and merges with the pound of their blood. It is music that Armie has never heard before but is in love with; music that has the power to throw back the curtains and let his sunshine stream free, that unchains him from inhibitions. Some of the lyrics are English and some of them are Italian and yet others are in French and it is in these instances that Armie sees Timothée’s lips opening and closing over the words, familiar.

Armie is Timothée’s slave when he speaks French.

Time is a different thing now, neither here nor there, meaningless. After some span of minutes (hours?) Amira and Michael shout that they are going outside for a smoke; now it is only the wild youth, fearsomely tireless in the deadliest hour. Esther is dancing with a boy and then she is dancing with a girl and after all these treacherous seconds Armie and Timothée have yet to come close to each other. Until, until, until.

The song changes. Following the pattern of the evening the DJ has been transitioning flawlessly between melodic club trance and pulse-shivering trap and slinky debauching hip-hop and now she has chosen something that makes Armie want to explode out of his skin. His eyes clap onto Timothée’s own, reflective and immoral under those darkest of brows, and that volatile, cautious thing that’s been bubbling between them for days and days comes thundering to the surface.

_Come to me. Let me._

So Armie goes to him. Without even a sliver of regret or guilt or second-guessing he goes. Following his progress with an up-tilt of his head Timothée watches without a single blink, the only metamorphosis to his open face a glimmer of delight that sprinkles through his eyes and caresses the edges of his lips. When Armie reaches him they just look at each other. And then,

Timothée starts to move. It is no secret that he can dance; he can flail around with a complete lack of self-consciousness, all messy long-limbed grace like Molly Ringwald in _The Breakfast Club_ , and when he wants to create a magnificent entrance for himself he can pull off that endearing shoulder shrug of Elio’s. However, unbeknownst to unfortunate, unsuspecting Armand Hammer, he is also evidently a commander of the art of gyration. Before he is even aware that Timothée has closed the space between them their hips are flush and the younger’s hands are flitting carefully _everywhere_ along the lines of Armie’s torso, his overwrought shoulders, his back. It is plain that he understands his control of the situation, but he is guarded: he will allow Armie to push him back if he so desires, he will respect whatever porcelain boundaries they have crafted between them. There is no shield strong enough to convince Timothée that this is not exactly what they both need right now but he understands that in order to preserve any trust they have cultivated he must offer Armie a chance to deny him.

In his eyes: _let me._

In response, Armie cuffs his massive hands around Timothée’s hips and wrenches him closer, delirium exploding behind his blackened pupils. His thumbs meet in the middle around the whiplike proportions of the dark-haired boy’s elfin waist and the thought that Timothée is _so_ fragile, the fact that he could pick him up and pound him against a hypothetical wall, streaks involuntarily across his mind. While Elio is casually, naturally sensual, a moonbeam ray emanating sexuality, the talented boy that brings him to life seems to be much less sure of himself, not quite as bold as his fictional counterpart. Perhaps it is the ethanol that burns courage through his veins or the night-blindness of the club or the early morning hour but Timothée is made entirely new in Armie’s hands, a wanton, serpentine creature, all lust.

It is scorching in the neon-colored dimness; Armie’s sweat feels hot as a jacuzzi. Every seething inch of Timothée pasted up against him is permeated; Armie wants to lap up the drips of perspiration from the younger’s luminescent skin just to taste what’s inside. Timothée is front-back, side-to-side, tossing his glorious head and sultry with the grind of his murderous hips, dark all the way through. Occasionally he turns so he can survey Armie’s face and what he sees there must be a clear green light because once he has gotten his visual fill he smirks wickedly and gets right back down to the business end of things. When Armie needs a reprieve he slaps his arm tight like a belt around Timothee’s waist and pins him back against his front, knowing that Timothée can obviously feel that he is outrageously hard, not a care in the world.

“Didn’t know you could dance like this,” he spits into Timothée’s ear, and the younger’s trumpet of laughter is Jericho, victorious.

“Didn’t know you liked to dance at all,” he rallies, and Armie growls at him and loosens his hold and lets him grind again. Despite Armie’s sunshiney Calvin Klein facade he does occasionally enjoy the midnight side of life, rope burn on delicate wrists and furious scarlet handprints on quivering marble ass cheeks; glowing eyes in the absence of light. He would be a liar if he said that he has never envisioned Timothée spread wide for him atop soft scads of blankets, arms sailor-knotted above his head, miles and miles of alabaster thigh and perfect skeletal torso. Something about his outer innocence corrupts the depths of Armie’s head.

But perhaps he is not the only one who veils himself in a facade because right now Timothée is a _slut_ for him, his hands grabbing back to palm over the muscle of Armie’s legs, his body rolling and rolling as he works his ass against Armie’s crotch. Maddening. Armie is snarling for it, hair on his arms goosebump-raised, sharp teeth bared. Wolflike. He whirls Timothée around and yanks him in so their bodies are flush, foreheads pressed together, panting.

Timothée is watching his mouth, smiling in a vulpine sort of way. “Armand.”

Armie laughs aloud out of sheer emotional overload. Against his outer thigh Timothée is rock-hard.

“Timothée.” He pronounces it correctly. Timo-TAY. He can tell it doesn’t go unnoticed by the slight rise of one crowfeather eyebrow.

“Did you need something, or,” asks Timothée sweetly, like they aren’t both at the height of arousal flush to each other.

Armie looks at him, little sprite in his arms, warmth and life and lure.

“Not a thing,” he lies, and Timothée bridges his eyebrows fully, all but laughs in his face because surely by now he knows. Armie isn’t sure if it’s sweat or precum that dampens the frontal cloth of his boxers. 

By now Esther has vanished; Michael and Amira have not returned and they are surrounded by oblivious strangers. In Armie’s ear Timothee breathes, “Do you think anyone knows us here?”

Armie wants badly to say no because he knows that Timothée wants to kiss him and there is nothing, nothing that he needs more but they are already at such great risk publicly fucking each other like this. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “Would it bother you if they did?” 

“No,” answers Timothée with mild defiance in his voice. “But I want – ”

Here he pauses, knowing that he can’t swallow his words into nonexistence after he spits them out. Armie watches the war explode across his beautiful face and impulsively cups the blade of his jaw in one huge hand. Immediately the younger tips his head up, natural response to the thing he so obviously desires.

“You want?” asks Armie, rough. 

Timothée lets himself collapse a little into Armie’s front, hikes his knee up so it’s perilously close to the cleft between Armie’s thighs, smiling with his eyes down.

“Yes,” he says, and his voice is a breath and a growl at the same time. “I want.”

Armie is swimming in a sea of ethanol and Timothée’s musk and he thinks he is going to spontaneously combust. All of his thoughts have turned red as lust, his emotion a living thing, too formidable and intense to be colorless. Every atom of his body has centered itself in a perfect circle around the proximity of the younger boy’s kneecap to his cockhead. He puts his hand on Timothée’s forehead and forces his head back, eyes open.

“Sweet Tea,” he says (Timothée’s slow heavy smile at this is bliss), “let’s go.”

So out of the club they head, winding through the crowd like a ribbon through a braid, threading the needle. Timothée is gripping Armie’s wrist and Armie’s pulse is hurling itself ferociously against his skin; he is sure that the younger can feel it. When they reach the outside air it is like diving into the coolest ocean. Calming, grounding. Timothée doesn’t let go of Armie’s wrist. They aren’t looking at each other, they’re just walking, moving vaguely in the direction of Timmy’s apartment. The mild joyous breeze does nothing to abate Armie’s tempest. 

Neither speaks a word, time skidding past them, their encumbered silence shrieking volumes. Before either is ready they have erased the distance between the club and Timothée’s temporary residence. Armie has no idea what to do and every idea of what he wants to do. He follows Timothée to the doorway, conveniently located in a semi-dark alley, the perfect ambience for little sins.

Timothée takes his leisure fitting the key in the lock, heartbeat striking his chest like a jungle drum, the perspiration on his palms making the job much more difficult than it should be. When he finally works the mechanism he pushes the door inward slightly, leans, shakes his rumpled hair out of his iridescent eyes and looks dead into Armie’s face.

Armie is cleaved in two. He wants, wants, _wants_. 

“Well,” he says, and he doesn’t move. 

“Well,” responds Timothée in kind, waging that personal battle. He has promised himself so many times that he will not blatantly make the first move; he will let Armie come to the conclusion on his own, no forcing of hand or contravening boundaries. It is currently the most difficult promise he has ever had to uphold. He will give Armie ten more seconds.

Armie blinks and swipes his tongue over his lower lip and jabs his nails into his palms. One forward step and he could have everything that’s been dancing around the corners of his thoughts for weeks, filthy little daydreams. He has to do this, he can’t do this, he is a living conundrum.

“I, uh,” he says, hating himself, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Heroically, Timothée prevents any phantom of distress from sweeping across his face.

“Bright and early,” he says, quirking one smooth eyebrow before ducking through the entranceway, concealing himself with everything he’s got. “Goodnight, Armand.”

The door is shut before Armie can respond and the overwhelming disappointment that rushes through his blood is enough to finally, finally make up his mind. Before Timothée is two steps into the front hallway Armie is pounding on that door, not giving half a fuck that he can’t keep the cadence of desperation from the rhythm of his fists. _Come back_. 

In two seconds the door is flying open and Timothée is bright-eyed in the faint light, hope skittering around his parted lips, his eyes.

“Can I come in?” asks Armie, and his voice is different. Raspy and slow and completely cocksure, not a dash of that hesitance, and Timothée can feel his blood blossoming in response. He reaches out a hand and fists it around the still-damp fabric of Armie’s polo and drags him inside and then there is nothing but the heat and the darkness and _them_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timothée takes Armie home.

In the interior hallway it is black; Timothée has not yet had the chance to flip a light switch and the only shifting glimmers of light come from further inside the flat, blinds thrown wide to reveal the glorious shine of the invasive watchful moon. Within the span of a few hours they have created their own nonsensical color palette: warm light in Armie’s flat, making sharp eye contact as they downed their first shots of the evening; gentle teal sky fading to dark, dark indigo on the trek to meet the rest of the group; alternate lightning-strike bright and enticing neon-dimness inside the throbbing club. Deep night dusted with silvery constellations above their heads on the close, timorous return to Timothée’s apartment.

Once the door has been securely shut for the second time in under a minute, Armie pushes back against its solidity, breathes. His adrenaline is skyrocketing but he is calm, he is present, there is not a place or a time or a person in the world he would rather be experiencing. The reality of that thought shatters him: it is like the realization that he is in love with Timothée, he feels this way whether he is intoxicated or clear-headed. It’s just fucking _true._

There is no noise but the soothing drone of the air conditioner in the background and the heavy hammering of two terrified, overeager heartbeats.

“I didn’t think you would stay,” says Timothée bluntly, finally, after they have both centered themselves within the current occurrence: alone, with only each other, drunk. His belly is roiling but Armie’s confidence is bolstering him and he knows that he will stand his ground. He has been cautiously, subtly angling for this outcome for days now.

Armie looks down first into the faint glint of Timothée’s eyes and then at the way his blanched knuckles strain against the impenetrable fist he’s made around Armie’s polo.

“I’ve been meaning to for a while,” he says, and even as the thought spins off his tongue he is astonished at the complete lack of caution he is currently exercising. _Want, want, want._

“Wish you would have sooner,” says Timothée, answering courage with courage, and when Armie blinks his eyes open glistening ink-black with the lust that floods his stream of consciousness. He forsakes reservation and threads his fingers deep within Timothée’s curls, tilting his head back, power seized in that one quick move.

“How are you so goddamn perfect,” he growls, and Timothée closes his eyes and parts his mouth in that unabashed joy and then Armie is kissing him, clutching him so hard they will both surely splice in two, maybe become one with what’s left. They kiss and kiss and it’s like an earthquake impact, days and days of sizzling voltage coming to fruition in one knee-buckling instant. They are grounded; they are taking flight, they are synchronic. Armie eventually relinquishes his grasp on Timothée’s hair so he is liberated and once he does Timothée tilts forward and pins Armie’s clumsy weight back against the door once more. Fingers crisscrossing over heaving backs, down goosebumped arms, lips crashing and mashing over breath that runs too fast to ever be caught.

Pause. Center. Eye contact. Never looking away from each other’s faces they explore, Timothée’s fingertips seeking the rigid muscle of Armie’s lower stomach, Armie’s hands rappelling the rungs of Timothée’s spine. Over the sunshine-riddled days the younger’s milk skin has slowly transitioned to a deeper shade, not quite amber and not quite olive but a gilded shade of gold somewhere in between. Right now it is positively glowing.

The breath that flows between them has roughened, increased; Timothée is unconsciously rucking his hips hard against Armie’s crotch and Armie is detonating out of his own body. The _want, want, want_ has turned to _need, need, need_ and there is nothing that could make him leash himself; nothing to stop him from shoving harsh bite-kisses into Timothée’s naked throat. The younger falls back for that, all swoon, the sensation amplified by intoxication. When he closes his eyes he can’t help but exhale a little laugh: arrival, triumph, euphoria. They are here at the culmination of his most wicked daydreams and his most immersive masturbatory fantasies; he is a live wire wondering which metaphorical dark alley they will next skulk into. Because it is wrong, what they are doing; oh yes. This is something that can never come to the light without consequence, backlash, ruin _ation_. And the thought does nothing but incentivize him.

Kissing as themselves with no character facade hoisted sheetlike between them is at first a bit odd but there are traces of Elio in Timothée and Oliver in Armie and there is no uncertainty here. Armie is more intense, not as quick to sit back and allow Timothée to come to him; he likes to boss. Timothée is all open mouth and darting, tasting tongue but he will pull back and he makes no secret of his preference to tease. He knows enough about Armie from their numerous late-night chats to understand that the older man gets off on control; that the game of baiting and withdrawing drives him mad. Timothée will first slam his body up against Armie’s so as to crowd him against the door, rise on tiptoes to lick into the space between his lips, then retreat with a spritelike grin and allow Armie to pursue him, vulturine. After a few rounds of this Armie is practically roaring in frustration and he puts his head down like a boxer in a ring and lifts Timothée bodily from the floor, overthrowing the younger’s power. He can do this because he is a marble stature of a man, crafted by the most practiced hands, a sculpture on prominent display. Commanding.

Timothée melts for it, boneless wrapping his skinny thighs around Armie’s waist, shifting so his weight is balanced and his crotch is against the elder man’s lower belly. Shirts hiking up, hair shoved and tufted up all over the place, the air crackling around them as Armie, still managing to keep his mouth everywhere, begins his long loping stride further inside Timothée’s apartment. Fingers splayed over his shoulders and his face and twisting through his hair Timothée clings to him, letting him seize the upper hand with no complaints. Armie chooses a landing spot against the living room wall and hefts Timothée’s weight with laughable ease; noses into the dark-haired boy’s craned throat, breathes him, growls: “When you’re ready I’ll fuck you like this.”

Completely by reflex Timothée swears out loud, nowhere near prepared for such divulgence, his body afire and the slit of his cock weeping precum against the confines of his jeans. “Now,” he says, “I’m ready now.”

Armie chuckles, traces Timothée’s jawline with his tongue. “No. You’re not. The first time can’t be here.”

Logically Timothée understands that he is correct; incongruously he is willing to take that bet. Into the hollow of Armie’s ear he says on a murmur, “Why? Will you split me in half?”

“I will,” says Armie seriously, and Timothée grins. He’s not an idiot; he knows what he’s up against, figured it out ages ago thieving glances at Armie falling out of his short shorts. “You’re so tiny.” 

“Ah _ferme ta putain de gueule_ ,” retorts Timothée with no heat, and Armie laughs.

“I have _no_ idea to what extent you just told me to fuck off but I promise it’s a good thing,” he says softly, thumbing along the younger’s shoulderblades. “You’re incredible, T. You’re not even human. I can’t look away from you.”

Timothée is aware that his face is blazing from more than just alcohol and arousal.

“I’m yours,” he blurts with his shy eyes angled down, and with renewed fervor Armie gathers him against the wall and presses their mouths together. Before even half a moment passes Timothée manages to break Armie from the chains of his polo, half-sticking to sweaty skin, and then his own shirt is on the floor and Armie is exploring that newly revealed territory with his open mouth. Collarbone mountains, crevice between neck and shoulder a valley; skeletal chest a rich tan plain. Armie swears he can feel the scurrying river of Timothée’s blood just beneath his skin. They are writhing and clutching and moving together and that raw excited breathing has started again and finally Timothée drops his head back and moans,

“ _M’emmener au lit_ ,” and when Armie looks at him with that question in his eyes he repeats, “take me to bed.”

“You and your French,” husks Armie as he pulls Timothée back from the wall, “do you know that it drives me crazy?”

Timothée laughs.

“ _Je sais_ , why do you think I do it?”

“Ahh, so he knows,” growls Armie, walking them confidently around the corner, down the still unlit hallway. “When did you figure that out?”

“Oh, everyone likes to hear languages other than the ones they’re fluent in,” shrugs Timothée modestly. “Also, you get this look on your face.”

“I get a _look_?” asks Armie, burrowing into Timothée’s chest, licking him. “No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. Like you’re – I don’t know, like you’re fascinated, or something. Which makes no sense because my French is rusty as hell.” Timothée cards his fingers through Armie’s hair, holding his head on both sides, kissing his forehead. “My dad is always correcting me.”

“You could speak like a second grader and I’d think it was the most perfect sentence in the world,” says Armie flatly, and Timothée has just enough time to bloom into brilliant elation like a bud under the spring sun when they arrive at the bed in question and he is thrown bodily upon it.

“Second graders don’t know how to say _stick it in_ ,” says Timothée baldly, living for the way Armie’s eyebrows in response bridge so high they almost go missing in his thick thatch of honey-gold hair.

“Is that what you want?” Armie asks, maneuvering with all the elegance of a jungle cat so he is on all fours above Timothée, one searching knee between his legs.

Seizing Armie’s forearms, Timothée meets his gaze with nothing but openness inscribed all across his lovely Grecian face. There is no trace of _teenager_ or _innocence_ in those multi-hued eyes now.

“Armand,” he drawls, “I want you to stick it in my mouth, I want you to stick it in my ass, I want you to rub it all over my face and my chest and anywhere else you might want to experience your cock on my skin because I want you all the fuck over me right goddamn now.” 

After that, there is no more talking, not for a while. Partially it’s because Armie forgets how to form sentences; partially it’s because his cock has taken complete control of his motor skills and he is just going to completely acquiesce to wherever that may take him because he needs Timothée’s skin on every centimeter of his body. They are both instinctual biters and neither has a care for what obvious blemishes they might leave for others to see, harsh violent violet against the light of day, impossible to conceal in billowing oxfords and tiny eighties shorts. If there are questions, let there be, but let them exist in a future state. Tonight belongs to them and the way they feel in each burning glorious second, all things new under the vaporous shield of early morning and alcohol.

Armie has his hand between them, pushing at the bulge of Timothée’s cock against his shorts, needy and ready, demanding. Not a single secret in the world harbored anymore, all truth, and Timothée is so tired of being bashful, so tired of not asking for what he wants. He snaps open the button of his shorts and unzips himself and wriggles out, left only in boxers, his eyes never straying from Armie’s own. _Let me_ , his hands say when he reaches to do the same for the older man, and Armie does without vacillation, rocking back to give Timothée full access, watching him as he peels back layers to get to the core. Watching to see if the front flap in his boxers will reveal any flash of flesh. 

“I wanna see you,” says Timothée then, low, and it’s not a request so Armie lets him remove all of their barriers and then he falls back on his haunches, appraises hungrily while he lets himself be appraised. Timothée’s gaze makes him feel warm, wanted, like he is something to be both valued and lusted after, and he knows that he must be reflecting the same emotions as he studies the younger’s body, foxlike and lithe with the muscle of youth, starred with bones and freckles and that smooth pelt of black curly hair arrowing down his pelvis. He is star struck and drymouthed and enamored. Impulsively he reaches over and swipes his thumb over the slickness forming at Timothée’s cockhead and Timothée shudders, watches his own dick twitch.

“All the time,” he says, half smirk pushing at the lushness of his mouth. “I stand next to you and this happens. It’s a good thing it’s summer because I’m dripping all the god damn time and I can pass it off as sweat.”

“Yeah, Same for me with you. I’ve wanted to fucking taste you forever,” says Armie, sucking his own thumb into his mouth, Timothée’s salt a tang on his tongue. The younger follows his progress and hisses involuntarily, mesmerized, so hard he is going to combust.

“Have another, then,” says Timothée snarkily, spreading his legs, his arms; wide like in Armie’s daydreams. Armie makes this velociraptor _rrrrrrrr_ in his throat and pushes Timothée’s thighs down, restricting himself because he is half-blind from lust and he is losing the upper hand.

“I will if you will,” he says, and Timothée takes a pause to give Armie another searching once over, clenching his fist and biting his lower lip out of pure reflex. It is within these minuscule motions that Armie realizes that his dark little cocksure counterpart is - dare he say - _intimidated_.

“Armie, Jesus Christ,” says Timothée finally, “you weren’t kidding, in the living room.” He reaches a curious hand and bats at Armie’s length, delighted when it springs upright for him like he doesn’t experience the same thing with himself every goddamn day.

Armie laughs all the way down in his chest to cover his flush, comforting rumble. “Here’s where we make a joke about the size of my feet.”

“Or here’s where I taste _you_ ,” says Timothée, and like a cobra he strikes, body uncoiling so he can reposition himself hovering over Armie’s mammoth golden thighs. Armie doesn’t have half a second to register before Timothee’s roseate tongue is gliding down, down on the path of hair decorating his lower belly, pausing over the head of his leaking cock, blowing fiery air across the slit, _tormenting_. There is no more _let me_ ; no, now Timothée is in the habit of _doing._

Armie resists the urge to seize Timothée’s head and shove it down.

There is nothing but wicked joy in the younger’s eyes as he plays, nudging the ridiculous girth of Armie’s dick with his nose, occasionally flicking out that demon tongue just to taste, just to make the golden man squirm in his skin. Maybe he’s a little intimidated but he’s starved for Armie’s taste and curious as hell and he’s not afraid to swallow.

Which he does, just the head, but Armie loses it for that, groaning from his chest, gripping in Timothée’s hair just to stabilize himself. It’s been a hot minute since his cock has been in _anyone_ ’s mouth and to see Timothée’s unruly coal-black head bobbing on the tip is enough to make his belly coil. After a few seconds of unbearable vacuuming heat Timothée rests his head against Armie’s hipbone and laps and licks at the length, the underside vein that throbs and throbs against his tongue. On all sides Armie is weeping that clear piquant fluid, so pent up, overflowing.

Timothée licks it up, rises to slip his tongue into Armie’s mouth so he can taste his own essence, and there within the hollow of Armie’s cheek he recognizes another taste, distinct and similar to the flavor on his lips but not the same. It’s himself, he realizes, and his stomach plunges like a wayward elevator. His precum is in Armie’s mouth.

He implores: “Taste yourself.”

“Timothée,” whispers Armie against his lips, wanting the sound of that name on his tongue, and the younger groans a response before he climbs into Armie’s lap, throwing one thigh on each side like he’s been straddling dick his whole life, rubbing his ass against Armie’s cock. Neither of them could be any harder and Armie grips Timothée’s pixie-boned forearms as he slides down, letting him poke around the unmapped space he so desperately wishes to fill. When he pulls back their hips come flush and Armie wraps one massive hand around first Timothée’s cock and then his own, squeezing first lightly, then harder in rhythmic push-pull, burrowing their foreheads together so they can divide oxygen and eye contact and the frantic little pants that burst from their throats.

“You can’t do this to me,” gasps Timothée even as he kisses Armie’s open mouth and his eyes say _go don’t stop don’t ever stop_. “I’m going to – I want you to – ”

“Let me,” says Armie, stealing his silent imploration, so Timothée lets him. Armie’s huge hand keeps his cock firmly pressed against Timothée’s own and he jerks them in cadence, focusing his thumbprint on Timothée’s glossy head, never deviating from where he is invading Timothée’s space. Eyes half-mast, lips parted, tongues meeting in the middle as they shudder and struggle together, iron flesh searing on iron flesh and without even a thought Timothée on the cusp of orgasm grinds out, “ _Putain de merde_.”

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” swears Armie in response, and with his free hand he fists in Timothée’s dark, dark waves and then by some miraculous instance they attain climax together, spurting salty cream liquid all down the other’s arousal, sticky disarray. Timothée is breathless, helpless moan on his lips as Armie finishes him, not ceasing until they are both wholly spent and shaking against each other. When they kiss it is a fervent thing, brimming with every iridescent word they have not yet been able to speak aloud. Armie might be hoping but there is love radiating from Timothée’s every _pore_ and he is warm all over with even the suggestion that he’s not alone. It’s a good start, tonight, anyhow.

“Hey,” he says, gently, and Timothée raises his hazy eyes and smiles and kisses him again. “I don’t want you to think that I don’t want to sleep with you, because I’m obviously dying to. I just thought – you know – maybe we shouldn’t be so drunk for the first time. Is that okay?" 

“Now that I’m clearheaded, that makes perfect sense,” answers Timothée, and he laughs. “Like, I’m still going to say yes, if you’re worried about that. But I don’t want to be all over the place. Good call. Um – ”

He’s shy now. Armie tips his sculpturelike jaw up with the hand not saturated with cum, asks for eye contact, receives it.

“Will you stay?”

Armie drops cottonball kisses on each cheek, the tip of his nose, his bitten lips.

“That was my plan.”

And so it is that Armie Hammer spends his first real night with Timothée Chalamet. They clean up with the tissues conveniently located on Timothée’s nightstand and thread limbs under silken sheets, fingers laced and ankles criss-crossed, idle kisses lulling them to sleep while in dreams the potential of tomorrow glitters gold. **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so I fully intended this to be two chapters and done but I'm not finished with this, not yet. You all have ASTONISHED me with your feedback and I am so grateful to each and every one of you. Y'all truly make my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the boys have to face everyone after getting it on, and Amira and Michael are way too wise for their own good.

In the stark soft canary haze of sunlight, nothing has changed.

Armie wakes up to the rich roasty smell of Italian espresso and the paradise sight of Timothée perched on the end of the bed wearing only his diaphanous little boxers and a massive smile that sings timidity and elation all at once: _you’re here, you’re here, don’t leave._

Armie understands that emotion better than he could ever vocalize.

“Good morning, golden boy,” says Timothée, and the happiness in his voice is so big it threatens to explode through his words, overtake the air. It is catching and Armie goes mad for the pet name, their little exchange of affection, this thing that belongs only to them.

“Hello, Sweet Tea.” 

“I made us coffee,” announces Timothée, tilting his head in the most endearing of ways, his mouth unable to contain his smile so it flows to his eyes. “And there are chocolate croissants.”

“You’ll spoil me,” says Armie, beaming back at him. “Been up long?” 

“Half an hour, maybe.” Timothée shrugs. “It’s glorious outside, man, come see.”

It’s easy to get out of bed with the promise of fresh food and a perfect day and Armie all but bounds from the mattress, stepping into the messy pile of his shorts on the floor; follows Timothée to the balcony, the doors of which have been pushed wide. The younger boy is right, the weather and the sky combine to make a marvel, the heat of the day already raising sweat and joy to the surface of Armie’s skin. The beauty is like a reassurance and suddenly Armie remembers everything, _everything_ that happened the night before. Instinctively he leans sideways into Timothée’s warmth, teeming, exhilarated.

“I told you,” says Timothée, gratified by the emotion unfurling clearly across the perfect equilibrium of Armie’s face.

Armie rumbles acquiescence, tapping his palms against the railing, pleasantly hot under the attention of the sun. He ducks his resplendent head, lets his eyes skip appreciatively off the delicate edge of Timothée’s glaring collarbones. Without even knowing he is biting his lip, hungry. “Can people see us up here?”

A tiny strike of thrill pushes like a charge through Timothée’s veins because he knows that tone of voice, knows what Armie is asking, _is there privacy_? “I don’t know,” he says frankly, and it’s a little bit tricky to breathe. Without the warrior mettle of alcohol he is shy again; it’s too new, he can’t ask for what he wants without knowing for certain the answer. 

But Armie can. He grabs Timothée by one pixie-thin wrist and pulls him with meaning back into the flat, situates him hidden around one corner. Chucks his chin up and leans down and places his mouth _oh_ so firmly around Timothée’s parted lips, coaxes his tongue into play. 

“I was glad to wake up to you today,” he says hoarsely, his voice decanting smooth like honey into Timothée’s open mouth, and the younger boy is ruined. He reaches without sight for any part of Armie to grab hold of, drags his nails down the length of the older man’s back, resistance fruitless: he would do anything, anything for him. Without the dominion of words in his current arsenal all he knows to do is kiss and he does like a zealot, the press of his tongue in Armie’s mouth and his fingerprints down Armie’s back ushering him closer, as close as he can get without crushing him against the wall. In the absence of dark their fervor is still there, still flaming like a fire run wild, beyond the realm of either’s command. Fiendish, volatile, _true_.

Timothée thinks that in all the time they’ve known each other maybe this is the truest that Armie has ever allowed himself to be.

“They are all going to know,” he says hushed, murmuring against the poky stubble peppering Armie’s throat, grinning because he can’t stop himself, because he doesn’t care. Because:

“They already know, T.” And Armie’s voice isn’t gentle; it doesn’t need to be, he isn’t breaking difficult news because they’ve both been aware of their relationship’s comprehensive lack of boundaries for ages now. Aware of the way Esther watches them and smirks all the way up to her dark, kind, understanding eyes; the way Luca lets them stay close just a little bit longer than he needs to when they’re filming. Their circle is Aware with a capital A that in the case of Timothée Chalamet and Armand Hammer, life has begun to emulate art.

“Armand,” says Timothée slowly, and it’s a luxurious little drawl like he isn’t heart-stammering armpits-damp jittery. “How do you know they know if you didn’t know until yesterday?”

Ah.

Armie curls his fingers through Timothée’s hair and pulls his head back and grins because there’s no fucking point in denying anything when less than twelve hours ago he was holding Timothée’s cock flush against his own, shivering as he came in eager torrents down the flush of Timothée’s skin.

“I think _you_ know by now that that isn’t exactly the case,” he says bluntly, and the new smile that opens heavenlike across Timothée’s face is all euphoria.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

They speak in quotes all the time, cloaking themselves in Elio and Oliver because it is here that they are most true to themselves, calling each other by different names to counterbalance the fact that there is nothing fictitious about the intensity of their offscreen relationship. In keeping with this norm Armie sways a bit and looks smirking from side to side before he meets Timothée’s eyes and nods.

“A couple of days after we met,” he says, and the caution in his voice is not for Timothée, it is for himself, because he has never spoken about this, about the way his fingers tingle and his belly gets hot and his heart forgets how to act like a normal human organ when the panther-litheness of Timothée’s body is pressed against his own. “I was walking towards the pool, and you were there with Michael and Luca, and you were wearing those fucking jean shorts that always need to be hitched up and laughing into the sun and I thought, oh boy. And I’ve just kind of felt that way every time I’ve looked at you since.”

Timothée hasn’t stopped beaming since Armie opened his mouth and there is a little glow of triumph in the rainbow hue of his light eyes because he knew, he knew, he _knew_ Armie was right there with him. Conversationally he asks:

“Did you know I was hard as fuck the first time Luca made us make out?”

Armie laughs out loud. This is why Timothée is the most interesting person he has ever met: he is unintentionally charming and disarming at the same time, the frankest soul. If he feels something, you will know; he has no reservations about letting his mind be bared. Armie has read _come to me, let me_ like an invitation in his eyes a thousand times, but he has also seen something much more emphatic, much less controllable. Something that has much more proximity to love than lust. 

“Not explicitly, but your body language made me speculate.” Armie lets a kiss fall like a singular diamond of rain onto Timothée’s temple. “And, you know. I was too.”

“Shut up, you were not,” rushes Timothée, automatically rucking his slender hips up into Armie’s front, all skin-smoothed scratch of bones, persistently hard and validated. “For how long?”

“You started licking my lips and I was done for,” says Armie on the hint of a growl.

“Oh,” says Timothée, and he matches his mouth fully to Armie’s and slips his tongue between the elder’s teeth, taste-test. “You like when I lick.”

Armie is consistently bulldozed by the fact that this kid can go from playful, uncertain teenager with his _shut up, you were not_ to this blazing cannonball daredevil, feet-first. Without an ounce of reservation he accepts Timothée’s tongue and lets him play, lets him twist his hips so they are pasted together and sensation is everything keeping them grounded. It takes seconds for his cock, already peeking and curious for Timothée’s proximity, to blossom to full mast; then they are fully aroused against each other once more. Again Armie is flooded with visions of anchoring Timmy against the flat expanse of wall behind him and sheathing himself to the hilt in Timothée’s tightness while the younger sobs out moan after moan into the sweat-slick skin at Armie’s throat. 

“Yes,” he says with difficulty, surfacing from the vividness. “I like when you lick.”

Timothée’s gaze shifts to land on Armie’s face and Armie knows his expression must be broadcasting his mind like a sports announcer with a bullhorn because a sudden sagacious wickedness gathers murkily across Timothée’s silver-bright eyes. He lifts one crow-colored eyebrow.

“I’ve barely even gotten to lick you,” he says, and Armie’s stomach contracts. “Not really. Not like I want.”

Armie curves his fingers around the fragility of Timothée’s wrist, slides his hand down, tightens his grip because the dominance in him is arising, carnality. “Well, now that you have my permission,” he says, and his voice is lighter than the roil and rage of his needy insides. 

Timothée hitches foreword and slides his tongue along the trace of Armie’s clavicle, up the inner line of his throat, quivering a little as he works to maintain equilibrium. Armie is still, still, still but the clench of his hand around Timothée’s arm is bruise-inducing. Under rough breath as his free hand travels the stone curvature of Armie’s lower back Timothée whispers, “Is it this wall that you’ll pound me against?”

Armie makes this wolf-like noise, little snarl of want as he uses the heft of his body weight to pin Timothée back, eyes going thundercloud black with lust. “This wall, and the bedroom wall, and the shower wall, and against the kitchen counter...”

“Yes,” breathes Timothée, and his cock is twitching nearly nonstop against Armie’s inner thigh, urgent. “And where will you let me lick you?”

“Fuck.” Armie parts Timothée’s cherub lips with his tongue, rutting, damp at his cockslit so quickly, haze in his head. He can’t speak and kiss at the same time so he spaces his words as evenly as he can with the wrenching press of his mouth to Timothée’s own. “Everywhere. Wherever you want.”

Timothée has fingers everywhere, flitting like birdwings over Armie’s neck, through his high-honey hair, over his ass and dipping into the waistband of his shorts, and Armie releases his commanding posture for this exploration so he can let himself get stroked, teased, provoked. He nearly blacks out when Timothée withdraws his hand and licks precum from the smoothness of his fingertips, looking Armie predator-like in the eye, completely guileless. Armie finds it difficult to convince himself that yesterday afternoon he could only dream of this, mere midnight hour speculation in his hungry, deviant mind. It’s astonishing how much can transpire in such a short period of time.

Time.

“T,” he says out loud, “when are we supposed to start filming today?”

Timothée blinks, each elegant slash of his lashes working to clear the syrupy lust-clouds in his brain. “Um, like noon?”

“And what time is it now?”

They look at each other. Timothée raises his wrist to inspect Elio’s watch draped over his skin and balks at the numbers.

“Twelve fifteen.”

They look at each other again; Timothée bares his teeth guiltily and Armie whoops out loud and then they are sprinting to the bedroom to make themselves as presentable as thirty seconds will allow. Timothée is in possession of one of Armie’s oxfords from a previous, completely innocent sleepover, and he throws it to him as he hops gracelessly into a fresh pair of shorts. Armie is glad for the shirt change but he is forced to rewear the shorts he had on at the club and he is fully aware that the discrepancy will not go unnoticed on set. He races to the sink, wets his hands and shoves them back through his crazy hair, spins blinking around and there is Timothée chuckling behind him, ready. 

“I texted Luca. He’s only a little annoyed, not like full blown.”

“Did you tell him I was with you?”

“Yeah. That was the last thing I said but he hasn’t addressed that yet.” Timothée has that shit-eating expression on his face, guilt, mirth, total lack of fucks.

“Cool. Let’s go fake it till we make it, then,” says Armie, and they bump fists like the platonic bros they are before Usain Bolt-ing it as fast as they can out of Timothée’s apartment into the open air of the city. For the time being they have forgotten to be dumbstruck and blinded by lust but Armie understands that the switch is just there, within easy reach, waiting with innocent patience to be nicked back on.

The good news is that they are never more like a ten minute walk from their filming location so their haste is rewarded with the amount of ground they can cover by sprinting. Everything feels crisper, brighter, like they are living in a snapshot and someone has turned up the sharpness of the photo. Armie has to stop himself from collaring Timothée and yanking him in to twirl him around, hoist his willowy frame over one shoulder. Even still, bold in the absence of people who know them he says, “Would it be weird if we showed up with you riding on my back?”

Timothée feels like a constant power surge; he is electricity, unbearably light and giddy. “No. Maybe. I don’t care. Can I?”

With a complete absence of reservation Armie says, “Yes,” so Timothée clambers atop his shoulders, skinny thighs squeezing Armie’s waist as he drapes his arms down his front, plucking at buttons and fretting with the collar of Armie’s shirt. In Armie’s ear he hisses, “how the fuck are we supposed to do this man,” and it isn’t even a question, just frustration from his core.

“You give it to Elio,” says Armie slowly, sucking the finger that skitters over his lower lip briefly into his mouth, “and I’ll give it to Oliver, and we’ll both win Oscars for our incredibly convincing, groundbreaking performances.”

*

When they roll up to the house in all their contagious glow Amira is right there to greet them and the look in her eyes as she takes them in is sharp, sharp, sharp.

“Darlings,” she says, observing the pushdown of Timothée’s teeth on his lower lip, the catastrophe of Armie’s half-askew oxford, “you really haven’t missed much. Luca seems to be struggling mightily with the placement of people around the volleyball net and I don’t think Esther has even had her hair fixed yet, poor thing. Have you slept well?”

The woman is nothing if not tactful. 

“Way too long,” says Timothée convincingly, hopping smoothly to the ground after Armie gives his calves a goodbye squeeze. “Where did you guys disappear to last night? We looked for you.”

Distract and redirect. Admirable. Armie tries not to smile as he reaches down to fix the fucked-up lace of one of his boat shoes.

“Oh, well, you know, hangovers don’t look as good on persons of a more mature age.” Amira is grinning, snarky. “Michael and I didn’t think you’d miss us. You looked like you were getting along just fine on your own.”

Slowly, painfully, a fever flush the color of cardinal feathers pours its way down Timothée’s neck; despite his intellectual advancement he can’t be prepared one hundred percent of the time. Armie, however, is ready to take the reins on this one. “Amira,” he says, laughing. “Have you even seen my dance moves? I was in dire need of a very immersive lesson from the master over here.” 

Amira is smirking, watching the convincingly (is it?) casual hand that Armie has clapped on Timothée’s reed-thin shoulder. “It seems that he gave you one. Did you learn anything?”

“Nah. He’s still hopeless.” Timothée wriggles from under Armie’s touch, bounces up on his toes to chuck him under his sharp chin and pat him once on the face, recovery of composure scrawled reassuringly across his face. Armie wants to kiss him so badly it’s a physical need and today is going to be the longest day.

“Hey now,” he protests as the three of them move closer into the thick of things “not totally.” 

“You have a long way to go, amigo,” says Timothée with false tartness, and they grin at each other behind Amira’s back.

The sound of Luca practically yodeling in Italian becomes clearer and clearer as they round the corner to the backyard. Luca isn’t difficult to get along with but he can be a bit of a drama queen about very minor things and from the little Italian that Armie knows it sounds like he’s having a snit about the angle of the crowd to the volleyball net. The three of them look at each other, giggle, bite their mirth back as they hide behind their hands.

When Luca sees them he does a double take and Armie has this massive, shouting thought that this thing that is happening with them behind the scenes is going to be impossible to conceal. But Luca can never focus on one thing for too long and so the interaction goes like this:

“Ah, the Kings have finally arrived! Something is different, yes? Something new? Armie, please tell me - the net is wrong, the angle is strange, why is this, what can I do? Timothée, where are your swim trunks, I need you in those light green-y ones, you know what I’m talking about - “ and he continues in this vein while everyone tries not to let their thoughts run in circles with his words and responds the best they can. Timothée flies inside the house to retrieve the fabled shorts he’s supposed to be wearing - it was a flash of intuition, perhaps, that led him to store them in Elio’s bedroom a few days earlier - and in the middle of jumping from one pair to the other Armie comes hurtling into the room opposite, wild-eyed and out of breath.

“Swim trunks!” He shouts, frantically. “Red ones!”

“They’re at your flat,” supplies Timothée helpfully, and Armie rolls his head back and moans, “fuuuuuuuck,” before spotting the pair of tiny hunter green shorts splayed haphazardly across the desk. With a spark of inspiration in his eyes he looks at Timothée, who is watching this performance with extreme amusement. 

“Green is close to red, right?”

“Sure, when it’s Christmas.”

“Fuck it, I’m feeling festive,” says Armie happily, and without even a thought he peels off his clothes and steps into the disheveled pair of green trunks. His body is thick coppery muscle and his massive hands are deft as he tucks and adjusts and Timothée is mesmerized. 

“Jingle _bells_.”

Armie laughs aloud, a joyous honk that permeates the room with sun. “Feliz Navidad, bitch. Let’s go.”

Timothée cuts the distance quickly between them, seizes Armie by the little white tie of his shorts, kisses his subtly swollen mouth. Automatically stiffening, Armie cuts a hand through Timothée’s thick frazzled hair, runs tempted fingers across his prominent ribcage.

“Amira is on top of us.”

“Yes.” Timothée lifts one shoulder, drops it, supremely unbothered. “Let her be. No one will ever say a word to us about it unless we lead them there.”

Armie grins. He loves this side of Timothée, little bespectacled owl sitting wise in the corner of a massive library, barely visible over the top of some ancient tome. Methuselah encased in a kid’s shell. As they descend back into the madness Armie reaches down and slips his fingertips gently, gently through Timothée’s own and both of them are bright as the northern star when they step outside into the daylight.

*

Once they replace their game faces it is easy to pretend that the fever-need burning between them belongs to their fictional counterparts. Armie steps into Oliver’s overcompensating golden-boy bluster like it’s a second skin (because it is, because when isn’t he concealing something from someone with a raucous joke or self-deprecation?) and in turn Timothée dons Elio’s cautious sensuality with ease. They are playing at real life; they are only tweaking and enhancing their own hearts and walking the spaces that form between blurred lines. When Esther comes to stand by Timothée during a pause in filming she looks sideways at him and grins like she can see straight into his brain.

“Did you have fun last night?” Automatically reverting to French so they can’t be understood by people who don’t need to understand.

“ _Toujours._ ” Timothée is smirking. “And you? Where did you go?”

“Elsewhere,” says Esther, grinning. “Let us end it at that.”

“Fair enough.” Timothée licks his lips, mirrors her smile, tries not to watch the way Armie’s back muscles constrict and undulate beneath his summery skin as he gambols around the makeshift volleyball court. “We should do it again.” 

“We will.” Esther blows a curl out of her dark, sweet eyes. “But you must stop teasing him like you do.”

“Esther,” says Timothée, mock-shocked, adopting a cavalier British accent. “I don’t have the foggiest idea what you mean.”

And so it goes, all day. Armie and Timothée dance through the set laughing and evading questions from their early morning crew, adopting saucer-eyed innocence like it’s their _job_. When they come together they interact with things like handshakes invented on the spot and high fives and friendly elbows crooked on sunblessed shoulders. They don’t discuss anything criminal out loud but they do converse with their eyes and for the sake of appearance this is acceptable but the implication of it all is more intense, more charging than any communication with words ever could be.

“They’re in good moods today,” observes Michael lightly after a few unspoiled hours have passed. He is sitting across from Amira at the outside table; they are drinking coffee and reading newspapers, luxuriating in the pleasant day.

“Indeed.” Amira licks her finger to turn the page of her paper, nonchalant. “I feel as though there’s very little acting that has to be done right now.”

“I feel as though there has been very little acting done by any of us since the very early days,” says Michael pointedly, pursing his lips in a little smile, and Amira looks up over her page and smirks at him before they turn their heads in unison and peer out to where Armie and Timothée are romping through the grass together, surrounded by people, blind to everything but each other. Neither of them is a fool.

By the time they finish filming, Timothée is shaky and glass-eyed and it only after his stomach produces a dying screech that he realizes that all he’s consumed today is three swallows of espresso. He yells over at Amira and Michael, still perched contentedly at their safe space at the table, “is there food near you?”

“Not now. I have old coffee.” Michael grins. “I’m sensing hunger.” 

“I’m sensing that it’s been time to go eat for like five hours,” announces Armie, loping easily up to the table to snag the last few swallows of Michael’s espresso. “Can we go out again?”

“If it will make you this easy to work with tomorrow, yes, _Americano,_ go out,” implores Luca from the courtyard, all dramatic hand waves, winking at Armie when he drops his mouth wide in indignation.

“Luca, I’m _always_ easy to work with,” he protests, and the immediate, affectionate pushback from everyone in the near vicinity makes him raise his hands and laugh out loud. “Okay, maybe not before coffee.”

“Or food,” interjects Timothée brightly, beaming cheekily at him.

“Or ten am,” continues Luca with that little eyebrow squiggle, and Armie concedes. He’s been a diva his whole life and he accepted it long ago; it’s part of his magnetism. His friends and family don’t seem to mind too much. 

They end up taking their bikes to a little café in the town square, one known for its wine and cheese pairings, and it’s one of those happy twilights where everyone is perfectly aware and pleased that dinner will be an affair that lasts hours. Often their little crew gets caught up in the frenzy of work and forgets to eat more than a grape or two for hours on set and when they sit down for food at last it’s never a short-lived occasion. Bottles of wine are ordered and cheese plates are passed around and soon everyone has settled drowsily into that satisfied evening haze. Armie and Timothée are slouched back casually in chairs right next to each other, heat swelling and surging in the minute space wedged between them, a space that gets smaller and smaller with each re-situation of arms and legs and hips. Intentionally they try different kinds of wine at the same time so they can sample each other’s and Armie can’t stop watching the elegant line of Timothée’s neck with each luxurious swallow, can’t stop thinking of what else might make its descent down that throat when they’re in secret once more. Constantly they’re finding stupid excuses to touch; Timothée keeps adjusting Armie’s already perfectly arranged collar and Armie keeps pinching Timothée’s thigh under the age-old veil of the table. They steal each other’s food; they play-fight after casual, loving verbal jabs – “It was totally Timmy’s fault, he couldn’t even remember the right color of swim trunks to wear today,” jokes Armie after Amira teases them about being unpunctual, and Timothée punches him blithely in the chest and everyone is laughing and no one even thinks twice about the fact that the two men were together all morning before the shoot because that’s just what they _do_. In Crema, during this shoot, there is no Armie without Timothée. They are one and the same. It is all any of them has ever known.

It’s past ten when they finish. The air is calm and warm around them and for a moment they contemplate staying together for a bit longer – another drink, another cigarette – but lingering exhaustion from the previous night’s excursion reigns and eventually majority rules that sleep is sometimes more important than shenanigans. The mood is blasé and Timothée and Armie need no justifications for why they hesitate while the others disperse, hips pressed against bike handles, leaning easy while they talk to each other for just a moment more. Timothée can’t stop his eyes from trailing the length of Armie’s torso, his bronzed throat rising above a slightly bared chest, free under open buttons. When he stares like that his mouth opens just minimally and Armie is finished, finished, finished. There is one thing he is thinking of now and that is Timothée displayed back on pristine sheets with his curls flopping everywhere and his ripe fruit mouth parted around the filthiest words.

When they’re alone:

“And where will you stay tonight?” It is a whisper, but Timothée’s eyes are keening out loud, all black. It could not be clearer what he wants.

“With you,” says Armie, confidently, “if you’ll let me.”

One half of Timothée’s lush mouth rises in that little enticing smirk, sharp-cool as if there wasn’t a qualm in his head of Armie’s answer. Armie has a lot of walls; he likes to watch them fall.

“Come on, then,” he says, because he’s going to erupt if he can’t get one thigh around Armie’s hips within the next ten minutes, and they mount their bikes and take off in the direction of Timothée’s flat. Armie thinks with the wind juddering through his hair and kissing his face and the sky metallic-moonlit above him that this is the most violently alive he’s ever felt in his life. Timothée makes him that way, renovates him, allows him simply to _be_.

He has no idea how he’s ever going to be able to give that up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UGH you guys I'm so sorry that it's been ages since I've updated. I had a big move going on and recently passed an exam I've been studying for for MONTHS and went on a super long vacation, but now I'm back and inspired! I realize this chapter is a bit of a tease because I'm the worst, buuuuuut part four is already in the works, and I'd say it's uh. Definitely not a tease. ;) Hope you enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timmy has a newfound thing for walls. Armie has a thing for simultaneous orgasms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn I have such an oral kink. I also have a thing for procrastination, apparently. Hope you guys enjoy ;)

Walls. That’s all Timothée sees after he’s managed to key them into his flat, both of them a bit breathy from the bike ride, the night wind nourishing their greedy lungs. The temperature inside is pleasant; the kitchen window has been thrown wide so that famous summer breeze can leak through the screen, and there is plenty to observe but Timothée is blind to everything but the walls.

He is thinking of Armie wrecking him against the living room wall, splitting him in half, thinking of how it will feel to be stuffed full of Armie’s cock. How warm and invasive the trickle of Armie’s cum down the suppleness of his inner thigh will inevitably be. It’s not like he hasn’t been half hard all day from the incessant torturous teasing but now he is all systems go, uncomfortably engorged against the constraint of his shorts, pre _pared_. He runs a slender hand impatiently along the iron ridge of his cock, pushes down with his palm, and he’s trying not to be absurdly obvious but of course Armie knows; he’s got eyes for God’s sake and their attention is always, always, always trained on some part of Timothée’s body. When Timothée looks at him now those eyes are cracked wide and almost wet with luminosity.

Armie lets his eyes fall to where Timothée’s hand has just fallen guiltily from his crotch and the movement of the smile that scrapes across his face is as deliberate and treacherous as a soldier unsheathing the sharpest of battleswords.

Innocently: “Something on your mind?”

Just from that look Timothée is bloodless in every region but his nether area; he swallows. “I’m sure you can guess.” His voice comes out thick.

“Probably,” agrees Armie, congenial, “but I like to be enlightened.” He’s been leaning against the door with his hands prim behind his thickly muscled back but he uses them to push off now so he can take a step in Timothée’s direction. In the back of his occupied brain he registers that neither of them has moved for the light switch; perhaps they both operate at their smoothest in the sinful crowfeather embrace of dark.

“Enlighten yourself, then,” says Timothée, regaining slightly the assuredness that Armie has stolen from him with those hunting eyes. When Armie reaches out and fixes thumb and forefinger around the prominent outline of Timothée’s cock he is smug and gaspy for it; his words were an invitation and Armie interpreted them correctly, as he always does.

“Mmm,” says Armie, musing, satisfied. “Yes. But what do we blame for this? How did this happen?”

“How didn’t it happen, you mean,” says Timothée. He is proud because he has kept his voice as even as their playing field, but Armie pinches gently and twists his wrist a bit and he has to swallow the hiss that screeches from his chest.

“Ah.” Armie grins, lifts his head, looks down with those bubbly eyes. His palm is working now, slowly _oh_ so slowly and Timothée can’t be wet at the slit yet, of course not, but he is. “So you’ve had this problem all day.”

“Not _all_ day,” says Timothée, cheerful despite the monstrous effort it takes for him not to lurch forward into Armie’s chest and let him squeeze and push and contort that hand until he’s floppy at the knees. “Just maybe, like, upwards of sixty percent of it.”

“Uh huh.” Armie dips his head now, pushes Timothée’s forehead up with a nuzzle of nose and chin. His mouth when it lands in the bridge of Timmy’s brows is cool and wind-chapped. “You weren’t obvious. Just to me.”

“Because you know what to look for, and you look.” Timothée finds himself subconsciously on his tiptoes and his head drops back and his mouth is open, wide enough for Armie to lick into. His tongue is hot and tastes like red wine and it’s _delectable_ and when Timothée reaches between Armie’s legs and squeezes he finds that his counterpart is just as solid-hard as he is. 

Under his breath as Timothée rummages Armie mutters, “God _damn_ ,” and Timothée thinks it’s the most satisfying thing he’s said all day.

They stand like this for a moment, feeling each other out, coaxing and kissing, swaying. Though each kiss is gentle it is blood-deep, slow tangling tongues and free hands raking through sweaty hair and Timothée thinks he is going to go mad from arousal. Each thump of his heart is exploding in his blood, his belly a tempest of intolerable heat. He can tell that he is leaking through his shorts and every time Armie strokes him his stomach muscles convulse involuntarily; he has needed to come all day and the abrupt stimulation is too great for him to absorb in one go. He is aware that his breath patterns have become embarrassingly heavy and he pushes marginally back, licking around the line of Armie’s mouth, hands skimming about the edges of his carelessly buttoned oxford.

“Can’t stand being around you shirtless all day,” he says, dropping his curly sable head. “It was hard before but now, you know. I know what comes at the end of the day.”

“T,” says Armie, and his voice nearly ruptures with hunger. “I’ve wanted to spread your legs and swallow that cock since the second you kissed me in the bedroom.”

Timothée unleashes this shaky little chuckle, pops the third knuckle of his right hand because he can’t stand not to move after hearing something like that, and then Armie grabs his birdboned wrist and raises that hand to his ruby mouth and rubs Timothée’s fingertips like a question over his lips. Timothée knows what he is getting at and pokes judiciously inside and then without even a pause to blink they are both on their knees and Timothée is fucking Armie’s mouth with his fingers. Armie lets him, easy as a breeze, sucks in when Timothée gets deep so he’ll pause for a second and experience the sensation. When he does, swearing out loud with that little defenseless whimper in his tone, Armie stills his wrist and maneuvers so the tips of Timothée’s fingers make faltering contact with the back of his throat.

Their eyes come together, hard like a cymbal’s crash; Timothée is semi-blind with need and it shows in his inability to focus. Armie lets him explore, just an inch or two, and then he is pulling back and ripping Timothée’s shirt over his sweaty head and pushing him forcibly to the floor, so he lies flat on his back. He can’t be arsed to unbutton his own shirt entirely and instead just yanks it off, a half-finished job so he can pay attention to the more pressing demands at hand. Timothée is practically convulsing under him in the haste to remove his shorts and when he finally succeeds Armie sits back just to look at him, that milk skin dyed olive by the sun, tiny sweat tears clustered in droplets over the canvas of his body. Timothée’s cock is so swollen it stands upright, throbbing visibly against the flatness of his stomach, aching. When Armie reaches to play inquisitively around the head he growls in approval because his fingers come away slick: the slit _weeps_ with precum. He rocks back on his heels to strip his lower half and in the absence of his touch Timothée out of necessity reaches down to stroke himself, moaning out loud for the contact, licentious. Armie can’t look at him without wanting to dive cockfirst between his featherweight ivory thighs.

Timothée, panting from that lazy rhythm on his own arousal, asks: “Do you still want to?” 

Armie leans down to close his mouth over Timothée’s own and he can feel the younger boy quivering in his own skin, _so_ turned on. “Want to…”

“Swallow it,” barks out Timothée, wriggling, as impatient as he’ll ever be about anything. Armie grins, sensing that the upper hand is his to snatch.

“What do you think,” he hums, fingers skittering light over his costar’s heaving lower belly. Timothée whines, arches his hips. 

“You’re fucking killing me.”

“I think,” says Armie slowly, grazing teeth over Timmy’s perspiring throat, biting down when he reaches collarbone, “it’s only fair. You’ve been giving me quite a time, T.”

With that he reaches rapidly between them, curls sturdy fingers around Timothée’s forearm so he can drag the younger’s hand away from his crotch and immobilize it by his side.

“No more touching,” says Armie, low and smug meeting Timothée’s stricken gaze. “You’re depriving me of my treat.”

“You’re depriving me of _mine_ ,” groans Timothée, and Armie laughs out loud, war-victorious, commanding. Tauntingly he says,

“You’d rather finish yourself?”

Without even giving his brain a hazard at filtration Timothée spits back, “I’d rather you deepthroat me,” and something as dark and sharp as the blade of a katana crosses Armie’s communicative eyes. Timothée has never been much for filthy talk in the bedroom but with Armie he can conjure to mind fifty-five descriptions offhand: what he would like to do, what he would like done to him. He sees no reason to stay silent about them, not when Armie is straddling him with his kiss-swollen bottom lip clutched between his teeth, his dick agonizingly hard standing up nearly straight against his belly.

When Armie has quite recovered he says imperiously, “Patience, young one,” before he starts licking centimeter by excruciating centimeter down Timothée’s sternum.

“Do you know what I was thinking about when we first came in here?” Timothée is clenching the fingers of his pinned hand so hard he’s mining hemispherical tattoos into his palms, talking more to distract himself than incite Armie. He is so turned on his vision is undulating darkness around the perimeters. “Walls.”

Armie burbles a little laugh; he thinks he knows what direction this might be going. “Walls,” he repeats with his face submerged in the slight musk of Timothée’s happy trail.

“Walls,” says Timothée, confirming. “Specifically, you cleaving me in two against one.”

Armie gives this mangled rumble of an _mmmph_ in his throat, momentarily thrust from concentration, dazed. He’s in love with the way Timothée commands language, loves that he uses words like _cleaving_ in everyday conversation. “You like this idea.”

“I could cum for the idea alone,” breathes Timothée boldly, and his reward is the damp stripe of Armie’s tongue lashing swiftly along the underside of his quivering cock. Timothée isn’t ready for it and so groans out loud for the shock and pleasure, fisting one delicate pale hand in the spun gold of Armie’s hair. All day he’s been waiting for this and it’s good, so good. 

Armie’s lips press tender as a feather against Timothée’s fevered skin, tongue darting wet over the head before arcing down to taste vein and base. Gently he suckles one of Timothée’s balls into his mouth and when the younger cries out Armie smacks one hand down on Timothée’s thin thigh, kneads him, encourages him. For a moment he simply weaves back and forth from ball to ball, licking and slurping and lapping at the tightened skin; all the while he presses Timmy decisively down into the floor. He likes power, likes to reign over his territory, and in this present hour Timothée is his dominion.

When Timothée is virtually mewling Armie emerges from between his legs, looks him unswervingly in those iridescent eyes, lidded and smoky with lust.

“What else can you cum for?”

“Your fucking mouth,” says Timothée, and he is panting again, brazen. 

“Yeah?” Armie lowers his head, puffs hot air on the shuddering head of Timothée’s cock, which continues to seep steadily from the slit. “Ask for it.”

Timothée likes this, likes seeing Armie’s veils thrown open so he can glimpse what he’s really like in the dark. What he’s like in his most primal of moments, the cluster of wants and needs and instincts that comprise him. “Let me feel the back of your throat with my cock,” he says, and it is a command. 

He has half a second to register the fact that it’s him who should be wedged between Armie’s thighs; earlier, he’d professed such a profound desire to slide his tongue in every nook and cranny that the elder man would stand for, but then Armie makes good on his promises and engulfs the entirety of Timothée’s cock in his mouth and then Timothée can’t think at all. In this moment he is made entirely of galaxies and nerve endings. Armie is good at this; like, _really_ good, and maybe when his brain has cleared he’ll have the presence of mind to wonder where he picked up his techniques but right now there’s nothing, just twitching muscles and vacuuming heat and those huge hands forcing his hipbones back into the bed so he can’t give in to the feral need to thrust. Timmy’s fingers seize in Armie’s golden hair and it’s embarrassing how much he is not going to last. But Armie pauses, licks slow up the length, looks him in the eye while he bats Timothée’s cockhead around with his teasing tongue.

“Good?” 

“More,” blurts Timothée on a shameless sigh, and Armie shows his teeth. Rests his open, predatory mouth against the pulsing vein.

“I have an idea,” he says, slowly. “You trust me?”

Timothée is too bleary in the head to process him, squints through a jungle haze of mad lust. “Of course…”

“Good.” Armie flashes that schmoozing frat-boy grin, kisses the tip of Timothée’s sensitive shuddering dick, bounds off the bed. He grabs Timothée around the bony circle of his hips and lifts him with the ease of a child picking up a Raggedy Ann doll. Automatically Timothée knots his thighs around Armie’s hips, scans his beaming, self-pleased expression, shakes his head marginally in inquiry. 

“What – ”

“You said you’ve been thinking about walls,” says Armie as though he is providing an explanation for a very uncomplicated question, when really he is providing no explanation at all. As he’s talking he’s walking them over to the side of the room, the wall there a backdrop of robin’s-egg blue, empty save for a little white shelf and a familiar-looking painting whose creator Timothée cannot immediately place. “Here’s one for you.” 

And before Timothée can utter a chirrup of remonstration Armie has flipped him bodily upside down, spine pressed flat against the smoothness of the wall, supporting him with arms around his waist as he uses the side of the room as support. Timothée’s face is in Armie’s crotch and when Armie sucks one of Timmy’s balls cautiously into his mouth he suddenly understands what Armie is doing: inverted sixty-nine.

“Huh,” he says, turning his head, clenching his abdominal muscles so he can raise himself slightly, peek around Armie’s elbow and look at him. “Kinky. Not bad, man.”

“Eh, I have a thing for simultaneous orgasms,” says Armie, quite cheerily. “You, evidently, have a thing for walls. Problem solved.”

“Solid,” says Timothée, kissing Armie’s inner thigh, nosing against his furiously twitching cock. “Didn’t know that about you.”

“The simultaneous orgasm thing?” Armie hisses when he feels Timothée’s mouth opening over his cockhead. “Yeah. It’s the most satisfying way to do it, you know?” 

“Yeah. It was so good like that, last night.” Timothée weaves a web with his tongue, connecting lines, teasing between Armie’s legs. “Don’t drop me when you cum, okay?”

“No promises,” says Armie, ribbing, and Timothée is about to conjure a retort when Armie pulls his cock in again, _mmm_ ing for the thick flavor of salt that bites at his taste buds. When Timothée swears aloud it’s out of his control and he knows he has to become an active participant in this exercise before he gets too consumed by sensation so he smacks his hands down on the solid muscle of Armie’s thighs, gets his grip, and dives in. 

The most satisfying part about being situated where he is: he can feel it beneath his fingertips when Armie starts to quiver for him. Timothée is no head connoisseur but it’s not difficult to recreate what he himself likes on someone else so he just _goes for it_. He can make it about halfway down Armie’s shaft without choking; he figures there’s time to learn how to relax the back of his throat later and he’s got greater difficulties to conquer when he’s hanging upside down with all the blood that wants to pool in his cock being redistributed to his head. So he uses his hands, gripping the base of Armie’s cock and twisting his wrist, toying with his balls as he bends his toes against the bombardment of pleasure in his belly. Armie holds him steady but the squelching of his mouth around Timothée’s shaft is infused with little involuntary moans now, here a vocal sigh, there an outburst of breath from the back of his throat that blasts like dragonfire against Timmy’s skin. Satisfaction. Timothée is savage for this and even though his body is groaning for release, even though his balls are tight, tight, tight and his cockslit is seeping spurts of precum, he lets his mind shut off and his instinct reign. Under his tongue Armie’s taste grows ever more viscous; he’s close and his thumbs are bruising Timothée’s calves. Timothée is clinging on to him from sheer self-discipline; he is weakened from carnality but Armie’s arms around his hips only clench harder when the muscles of his abdomen start to judder. The crown of Timothée’s cock keeps grazing the back of Armie’s throat and with each duck of Armie’s head he nears the stark cliff-edge of his climax. In his whole life he has never been as synchronized with someone as he is right now.

And then, and then. Armie swallows unexpectedly around his cock and Timothée is groaning down Armie’s shaft, quaking with that orgasm force, waves and waves coursing through his bloodstream, disrupting the calm of his nerves into bliss. Armie grunts a bit, stills him, and Timothée can feel him smiling victoriously as he drinks assuredly from Timothée’s cockslit. Timothée has the clarity of mind to remember _I have a thing for simultaneous orgasms_ so he does not stop, barges on, sucks and licks and angles his wrist until Armie pops off the crown and swears, warbled “ _fuuuuuuuuck_ ” on heavy breath as he floods down Timothée’s throat. The sudden burst of warm creamy liquid shocks Timothée to his core but damn if he’s going anywhere; he takes it all, self-satisfaction screaming in his veins. Armie’s orgasm belongs to him.

When every drop has been drunk Armie pats Timothée’s thigh, flips him right side up again, steadies him at the shoulders. Timmy’s face is red-flustered and wide open and smug.

“Fuck, Armie.”

“Didn’t drop you,” says Armie, grinning in that broad, likeable way of his, and Timothée kisses him wetly on the mouth. The exchange of taste is a ritual; it is one of his favorite things, the deepest of intimacies.

“Brownie points for that.” He gets to his tiptoes, rests his forehead against Armie’s own. “Fuck, Armie.”

“Did the wall disappoint?”

“Not at all.” Timothée laughs. “But it hasn’t seen the last of us.”

Armie nods. Kisses him again. “This is turning into a kink of yours.”

“Started by _you_.” Timothée feels like a sunrise, beautiful and multicolored and powerful enough to light the world. “Come on. Let’s go sit on the balcony for a while.” 

Outside, they perch together on the ledge, keeping their faces to the sky while Timothée careens sideways into Armie’s shoulder. The only thing that can reflect the surge of emotion coursing between them right now is the incalculability of the galaxy, the platinum and yellow of the stars winking like sprite lights in a faerie garden. Not an end in sight.


	5. Chapter 5

Every morning for a straight week now they’ve awoken with their limbs braided together and their stomachs warm with contentment and this is the time that their little dance becomes a game. Can they get away with roping their arms over each other’s waists and shoulders and backs if they call it method acting? Can Timothée pass off his reason for standing on the tops of Armie’s feet between takes as a barrier that shields his feet from the heat of the ground? If, when they race upstairs in the majestic Perlman home to swap their outfits out at Luca’s behest, they spend an extra five to twenty-five minutes furiously making out against the back of the door, riling each other up until they’re glass-eyed and gasping, will they get called out upon their delayed return?

The ice they skate is thin, thin, thin, and every day it erodes.

Armie likes this game, likes how it makes him forget that he’s someone else when he’s not here in Crema with Timothée, someone with a wife and children who’s grounded in the binding religion that’s been hammered (oh, _irony_ ) into his skull since he was _born_. There, he is repression; he is depression. Here, he is unbound: Timothée is unmaking him, and the person he coaxes from Armie’s depths is the person that has been hidden away since he was a child. The person his mother disapproved of, discouraged, decimated and re-assembled from the ground up like a Lego sculpture and forced to stand in Armie’s place. He was never _allowed_ to be who he needed to be. He was never _allowed_ to flourish on his own.

Timothée is one of the only people he has ever met who simply allows him to _be_ , in every way he needs, without asking of him a single thing except authenticity.

When Elizabeth calls, it is easy for Armie to lend the joy that Timothée gives him to their conversations. He is enthusiastic about everything, telling her that _yes babe it’s just as gorgeous here as ever, everything’s going really well, we’re really deep in it._ Deeper and deeper every day, in fact, as just last night he’d slathered first one finger, than two, in lube and curled them inside Timothée’s quivering body, learning him, coaxing open the tightness between his perfect ass cheeks. Closing his mouth over and over on Timothée’s own while the younger _mmm_ ed and sighed and mewled for him, an open plea in his eyes. Armie had known exactly what he’d wanted but he wasn’t ready to quicken the pace yet, wanted to preserve Timmy’s chastity for just a bit longer. The speed they kept suited him; maybe they were swift but in Crema time didn’t exist, it could be as fast as Pegasus or as slow as cold syrup. Here, they were unassailable. Here, reality was open for interpretation.

Maybe this is why he can’t quite bring himself to feel the full range of seething guilt that he knows he should be drowning in when he hangs up with the wife and children that he betrays every single day.

By day, they work, but the mood feels no different than it does when they’re off the clock. All that sexual tension is easy to fake when it’s real. Armie thinks about the similarities between the characters he and Timothée portray and who they really are all the time and when he catches Luca watching them flirt from behind smirking eyes he wonders just how shrewd their director really is. He’s not sure how comfortable he is with the idea that someone other than Timothée knows him like this, but he doesn’t dwell. Right now, negativity is an emotion that exists on another plane of reality. In his life he’s never been this carefree.

Their power dynamic roils and swells like hurricane waves: one man can yield power for an hour, but something can occur in the next that drives the advantage in full tidal force to the side of the other. The day they shoot the show-off scene, in which Elio demonstrates his musical prowess to Oliver via multiple instruments, Timothée wakes Armie by coaxing his cock out of his boxers with his mouth, teases and teases with his tongue only to withdraw at the last minute with transgression in his glittering eyes and say, 

“Now you’ll have something to look forward to,” 

before flouncing off to get dressed for the day. Armie in total vexation howls and hurls a pillow after him, but it bounces fluffy and harmless to the floor as he stays prone with the angriest of hard-ons thumping between his legs, Timothée’s bell-chime laughter gonging back over his shoulder. 

In instances like this, their game becomes far more intricate; levels of difficulty must be added. Armie has a point to prove and before things even get rolling he is doing everything, everything to incite Timothée’s interest. He stands shirtless with his sunglasses propped down on his nose and one big hand balanced on his hipbone, leaning over Timothée to grab iced tea from the table in such a way that his torso nearly comes flush with the younger’s exposed back. He nicks Timothée’s nose and rustles his curls and smacks him gently on his elegant thighs, pulls him up to stand on his feet between takes again and supports him with an arm around his hips, low as he dares. When he knows that no one is watching he breathes fire on the hot exposed skin of Timothée’s neck, innocently so it looks like he is simply speaking, but then his tongue flicks out and Timothée has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from hissing out loud. An hour and a half into filming he has started to grind his teeth; three hours and he has run out of creative ways to conceal his pulsing cock wearing only boxers and jean shorts. He can only sit with a guitar in his lap for so long before he unveils himself to everyone.

So it is that Armie discovers him in Oliver and Elio’s shared bathroom, frenetically masturbating over the toilet, having excused himself for an entirely legitimate bathroom break. The hand not in use is clenched around the edge of the sink and Timothée stands rigid, abdominal muscles rippling as he allows himself to dissolve into the necessary pleasure. There is nothing slow or luxurious about this: he is all need, his face slightly contorted as he bites down on his lower lip and sucks oxygen between gritted teeth. Mesmerizing.

Armie shuts the door behind him, locks it in one motion. Crosses the floor so he can press himself against the shuddering expanse of Timothée’s back, dampened with the sweat of exertion and heat. “Thought it’d be me doing this today,” he husks into Timothée’s ear, and Timmy groans aloud.

“Fuck you, Hammer, you fuckin’ did this to me.”

“Uh huh, just like you did this to me,” says Armie raspily, nudging his crotch into Timothée’s ass, and Timmy tries to reach back with his free hand but Armie seizes his arm and pins it. “No.”

Timothée spits, “Yes.” Fights.

“No.” Armie bites him on the shoulder, gentle so he won’t leave purple bruise-tracks behind. “Later. I like it when you make me suffer.”

He lays his own free hand over Timothée’s fingers, wrapped securely around his cock, sighs in his ear. “Let me feel how you do it."

In spite of the fierceness with which his body cries out for continuation, for _culmination_ , Timothée slows his roll. Smirks. “I should not.”

Armie gasps, thrilled, infuriated. “Fuckin’ _tease_.”

“Fancy the pot calling the kettle black.” Timothée slides his hand up, down, just once. 

“Learned from the master.” Armie’s tongue darts out, investigates the shell of Timothée’s ear. Again with the proper French pronunciation he says, “They’re waiting for us, Timothée. Do you want to cum or not?” 

It disturbs Timothée how much this knowledge turns him on, knowing that people might _know_ , that their peers might be speculating suspiciously upon their actions at this very moment. The truth is that they both chose a good moment to steal away: half the cast is hot and bothered from the sun and indulging in refreshments; the other half engaged in a halfhearted volleyball game, so not much speculation is, in fact, going on. But Armie, knowing that Timothée will drag things on until the sun goes down just to drive him wild, sees not a single reason to reveal this fragment of information.

“Yes,” says Timothée on a gale of breath, moving his wrist. “Yes, I want to cum. Stay still and I’ll teach you how I touch myself.”

So Armie curls into Timothée’s spine and clings with his fingers and kisses the smooth slick skin of Timothée’s neck, whispers to him while he gets closer and closer and closer. Timothée moans softly and rucks his hips and Armie tries to catch each sound he makes in his mouth to taste how Timothée feels on the inside, wanton. To keep him from alerting the entire vicinity to what they are doing in secret. When he explodes into both of their hands Armie rides the crest of his orgasm with him, understanding dimly that he has been quite stupid: now he is the one who will have to conceal his arousal from the world. Upon withdrawal of his hand he licks each one of his fingers stark-clean and makes sure Timothée is watching. 

When (after a thorough cleanup and a careful tuck) they bound downstairs looking like eager children on Christmas morning and find Amira at the base of the stairwell, neither is amazed in the least. She is a bloodhound.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she says loudly, looking infinitely amused. “Got lost, did you?”

“We were, you know,” says Timothée, trying to appear casual while his face slowly paints itself the vivid color of a male cardinal, “looking for – ”

“ – Timmy’s shades,” says Armie, saving him yet again. He feels like they are Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, withering away under the scrutiny of an endlessly cunning Minerva McGonagall. “Sadly, they are not upstairs, as previously suspected. I thought you left them there yesterday, dude?”

“Same.” Timothée clears his throat. “Maybe they’re at my flat? Amira, have you seen them? They’re black and – ”

“I know what they look like,” says Amira quite calmly, still with that omnipotent smirk gracing her face. “They’re on the kitchen counter. The corner, by the chopping board.”

“Oh.” Timothée gulps, grins, way too big. His radiant dappled eyes are massive and splendid and everything about him screams _aww, shucks_. “Thanks. I’ll just go grab them.”

And he darts away, leaving Armie to flash his own cheery smile at Amira before following.

It is quite true, indeed, that none of the cast or crew are approaching them about anything. But it is also quite true that their coworkers are highly capable of adding two and two to make four, and they are neither blind nor slow-witted. Some things need not be discussed aloud. After all, Amira rationalizes to herself as she observes the boys retreating, she and Michael communicate their thoughts well enough with meaningful glances and vague allusions that there is no reason for them to discuss frankly any suspicions they might have.

That night, Timothée gives Armie the most sensuous blowjob has he has ever received in his life. He makes a lot of heavy eye contact and rolls his tongue over every inch of Armie’s engorged shaft, licks precum from where it forms at Armie’s slit, slides his body up the length of the golden man’s torso so he can kiss that taste into Armie’s mouth. Sucks and laps at each of Armie’s painfully peaked nipples with his hand stroking expertly at Armie’s cock until the elder is _this close_ to begging, a whimper always keening in the back of his throat. He is prone; he is powerless. He is _always_ reeling from the intensity of their constantly shifting control, but he is so enticed and so entranced and so fucking in love.

He still can’t say it out loud, not even when Timothée emerges from between his legs and looks Armie dead in the eye and swallows every droplet of his orgasm with _such_ intent. Not even when they coil close together with their fingers ribboned and their long athletic legs interwoven, watching each other’s faces, emanating unmitigated contentment.

What he does say:

“I think you’re ready.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooh, please don't hate me, but it had to be done ;) Also whoa, two chapter updates in less than two weeks?! Whaaaaa??


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. It's been like half a year. Please don't hate me.
> 
> No excuses - the creative juices for this one just haven't been flowing, and I've had a page of this cranked out since like AUGUST, but it wasn't coming to me and it wasn't coming to me and I couldn't do something half-assed with this because it's one of my babies and I'm a perfectionist and so I just...didn't.
> 
> This update is not as long as I would have liked but I felt that I needed a bit more of T's perspective in this story and I wanted to remind you all that I am still, in fact, working on this! I promise I haven't abandoned it! So - here I am.
> 
> Thank you all for your love and patience. I would not have kept this going without you.

_Ready_.

The word is a fable; an unreachable horizon. The highest height; a cloud that looks like it might be scraped with a fingertip but in truth will never be within fathomable grasp. It’s barely been a week and a half since they started – fucking around? No, that’s not right, is it, because when Timothée looks at Armie all he can feel is _fond_ ; all he can feel is _delight_. He enters the hazy world of dreams excited to wake up the next day because Armie will be next to him, because one or the other will have coffee ready for the sleepier of the two when the sun rises once more, because Armie gives him something to anticipate.

 _Fucking around_ can’t cover half the range of emotions that Timothée feels when he thinks about Armie; _getting physical_ sounds positively antiquated, or somewhat like a scrap between two MMA fighters. _Taking each other to bed_ fits his thought processes smoothly so he settles on this terminology, feeling as though he’ll never pinpoint a sentence in either of the languages in which he is fluent to properly describe what they do. Because yeah, they fuck each other’s fingers and mouths and jerk each other off; kiss and kiss until they’re practically without oxygen and gasp each other’s names like the most veteran of porn stars, but there’s also that intangible _thing_ that happens any time they’re near each other. Like, how Armie can’t stop grinning when Timothée sits next to him and bumps their shoulders together. Or how Timothée’s chest feels as harmonious and calm and vividly hued as a sunset in the Florida Keys when Armie comes up beside him and lays one big protective hand on his fairy-boned shoulder.

It’s that stuff, that once-in-a-lifetime, not-supposed-to-exist-outside-of-the-movies chemistry that keeps leading them to each other. It’s that stuff that makes it impossible for Timothée to think about Armie and not eventually land on the word _love_.

“What’s in that wise old brain of yours, T?” Armie asks him, chucking his nose with a crooked forefinger every time he catches Timothée mooning at him with those huge open multihued eyes, obvious. And lately, what’s in his head is –

_I think you’re  
_

“Elio would tell Oliver it was private.” Cheekily _._

_ready._

“He would,” agrees Armie, nodding, clucking his tongue in thought. “But you’re not Elio, and I’m not Oliver.”

“I don’t have to tell you,” says Timothée, tilting his head up so Armie can kiss him, which he does, lazily. “I don’t have to tell you because you already know.”

In public, they’ve taken to referencing every kind of wall they can get away with. The kitchen wall, the pantry wall, the brick wall of the little pool in the Perlmans’ backyard. The fourth wall, because they’re breaking it every day. It’s yet another of their little games, and even though Timothée knows that realistically their first time will be mostly pain peppered with perhaps a burst of unbearable pleasure at the end, and it will regrettably not be occurring against the famous white wall in his living room, he _can’t stop fucking thinking about it_. It’s normal for him as a nineteen-year-old to be semi-hard for a good portion of the day but it’s extremely unfortunate under current circumstances. Half the time he’s required to be shirtless; the other half, he’s wearing the flimsiest, shortest of swim trunks, and when his head is clear he has enough presence of mind to feel sharp jolts of sympathy for men who lived their teenage years in the seventies and eighties. Short shorts are not, in fact, the friend of the uncontrollable boner.

When Armie speaks with Elizabeth on the phone Timothée backs away and waits for his golden counterpart to come to him again, slipping away like a spy, unseen, unheard. To escape his mind he goes for bike rides, summer breeze slipping fond fingers through his unruly chocolate-colored hair, Elio’s sunglasses hitched over his nose at a lopsided angle. He’s jealous in that mild sort of teenage way: envy just to be spiteful about something; because in reality he knows he can’t be envious, he’s the one helping Armie undo his marriage, brick by crumbling brick.

When Elizabeth is out of sight, when no one is speaking her name, Timmy couldn’t muster a fuck, feels a sinful thrill when Armie comes down his throat hissing his name and not hers, when Armie is gripping his hair or sliding a hand glassy with lube up and down the swollen length of his needy cock. In that plane of reality – the one that belongs only to them, half unreality in the Crema sun – she doesn’t exist, and he knows that Armie struggles with this too, that he pretends that it’s an issue they’ll never need to address. For now, they won’t, and they don’t. But every time her name lights up his phone and Timothée hears the joy in Armie’s voice when his children come to speak to their daddy he remembers that Armie is married and he is a wanton waif-boy who has seduced a man away from his wife.

This feeling never lasts. Timothée never was much of a dweller, and he might be young but he’s not so young that he can’t identify a soul connection when it slams into him with the force of an asteroid.

*

They don’t pinpoint a date for _ready_ , never talk about a time, but on the afternoon they’re scheduled to film the midnight scene Timothée wakes with the distinct feeling that the air has changed.

It’s slight; almost undetectable, but Armie’s fingers when he touches Timothée’s sleep-hot skin hold a sort of promise that they haven’t prior to this moment and the sharp eye contact they make in the mirror when they’re brushing their teeth is charged, charged, charged. Maybe it’s that they know what’s coming today; maybe it’s that they’re going to have to be so fucking _vulnerable_ in front of so many people, but the variation is there and they both detect it.

They don’t have much to do beforehand; Luca likes to be true to the time of day when he films, likes the authenticity, so they meet up with Esther and Victoire and go for a leisurely swim, get gelato, lounge about in the Perlmans’ backyard with books and sweating glasses of lemonade. It’s one of the easiest shoots Armie has ever had to do; he’s never had half this much free time at work, but the problem is that he has that much more empty space in his head to think of Timothée. How he stretches like a lean cat in the blistering sunshine, arm thrown up to shade his Grecian face with one long hand, arresting, exquisite. Armie wants to kiss him every moment, keeps hands on him whenever he plausibly can without drawing suspicion and sometimes even when it can’t be avoided. They are drawn to each other like lightning to thunder and he’s getting used to Amira’s eyes haunting them, to Luca’s shrewd smirks. Like they would ever say a word to them, and if they did, Armie has a thousand one-liners about method acting ready at the edge of his tongue. _Wife_ and _kids_ don’t exist when Timothée is near him and he knows he should hate himself for it but he just fucking _can’t_.

Before they are set to shoot Timothée is too nervous to eat; he escapes to the living room to practice piano, gets his tension out in the curl of his fingers over the keys, soul-cleanse in bars. Amira comes to listen to him, smiles softly when he turns his head to look at her, and he is stricken by how alike they are to their fictional counterparts. She knows he is apprehensive and she is mothering him.

“I brought you a plum,” she says, smiling, and holds out a little bowl. He will always eat fruit, even when his stomach is in coils, and his costars tease him _inexorably_ for it. Peaches are his past, present, and future now.

“Thanks, Amira,” he says, and accepts the bowl. Gets through two pieces without any protest from his stomach, feels the sugar sliding into his veins. It’s good; it’s what he needed. By the time he’s halfway through the bowl his hands have stopped shaking.

Amira, as is customary now, is watching him.

“You don’t have to be nervous about being genuine, Timothée,” she says gently. “You know that, yes?”

Timothée swallows, wonders if she’s talking about the impending shoot or whatever it is that he has with Armie, summer fling or something more.

“I know,” he says, cautiously. “It’s just really – real, Amira. It’s really real.”

Amira regards him, fingers braided together over one knee, and her face is nothing but kind.

“I know that, darling,” she says. “Sometimes things happen that we can’t explain, and we just have to accept those things and let life teach us what it will. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Timothée meets her eyes and wonders how he can feel so much better after a meager two minutes in her presence.

“Yes,” he says, “yes, I think so.”

She stands up and runs warm friendly fingers through his haphazard curls and then they have to stop because Luca barges into the room with his director face on and Timothée knows that it’s time to stow his nerves, get down to business. When Armie in his loose green button-down shirt walks in behind him their eyes meet, full of heart and heat and depth, and Timothée thinks of Amira’s words and knows that she knows.

Oh, how life emulates art.

*

As has become a commonplace occurrence, there isn’t much acting involved when the camera starts rolling.

Timothée loses all of himself in Armie’s hands, his eyes, his face, so near in the darkness. This is nothing, this is everything, this is what they’ve been doing every night (and, when they can swing it, some days) for nearly two weeks, and he can’t spot the difference. They aren’t alone but they might as well be; he knows Armie can sense his apprehension and he expresses everything Timothée needs from him without a word. After five minutes he forgets to be anxious and takes Amira’s advice and just lets life school him, lets Armie’s fingertips play his spine like a violin. When they are together it’s an orchestra, and it doesn’t matter if there’s a camera catching it. They can throw all of it under fictional names and call it _Elio, Oliver_ ; brush it off when people ask them how they make it seem so _genuine_. What they are is what they are and maybe no one will understand but maybe little lies are enough to cover it and what’s more is maybe they don’t care.

Three takes, three sweaty, breathless, desperate takes, and they’re done. Timothée is keyed up and he knows Armie is too and it’s late enough that he knows he can retire back to his flat without stirring suspicion. He doesn’t have to ask Armie to follow him; he knows where Armie will be spending the night.

Just for the sake of avoiding those questioning eyes it’s nearly an hour later when the knock at Timothée’s door comes. He’s been lying on his couch in Elio’s faded Levi’s reading _Pale Fire_ , held above his head with his tired skinny arms, and he’s in his own dreamscape headspace when he gets up to answer. Armie is there looking like the culmination of his fever dreams, blonde hair still in disarray from the shoot, shirt half-unbuttoned, knapsack slung over his shoulder. He eyes Timothée from the crown of his head to the tip of his toe and Timothée is well aware how he must look, dope-eyed from his fantasy world, jeans too big falling down over his lean bone-thin hips, unfocused as an ink smudge.

“Hi,” he says, leans against the doorframe, “been waiting for you.”

“Let me in, then,” says Armie softly, and Timothée stands back so he can slink past him, hoisting the knapsack over the brawn of his shoulder. Timothée watches the movement and wonders how Armie can be so huge and so graceful at the same time, his lion king of pride rock.

“I was worried,” says Timothée then, because he can tell Armie anything, although earlier hadn’t been the right time, not when the perfect balance they’d crafted for camera sessions could have been toppled, undone. “Earlier. But I think we did well.”

“I know you were nervous,” says Armie, dropping his bag to the floor; when he turns to face Timothée his eyes are crinkled at the edges, benevolent in that lovely way that Timothée has grown to adore. Here is the real Armie, not the caustic social media presence, the fake glassed-over eyes he gives to the paparazzi when he’s forced to make red carpet appearances. Kindness emanates from his core, and it comes out when he is with those he adores. “I would have gone to you, but I didn’t think you needed me. You handled it well.”

“I think us being together beforehand might have made it worse.” Timothée’s grin is shifty. “It’s the most intimate we’ve really been in front of the camera since – you know.”

Armie laughs, that deep-throated curl of noise in his chest. “I’m aware. You weren’t the only one thinking about it.”

“I know.”

The room feels too small now, Armie’s breadth and width and scent filling up all the empty space. Because he’s sick of being nervous Timothée cuts the tension and goes to him, steps easily onto the tops of Armie’s feet, closes his eyes when Armie curls warm considerable hands easily around his waist. **  
**

“So,” he says, little purr, “do you still think I’m ready?”

“You’re more than ready,” says Armie roughly, and he hoists Timothée up so he can knot his thighs securely around Armie’s waist, carries him assuredly to the bedroom. Whatever they have been in front of the camera, before their audience today, now they can be where they’ve been meant to be since they met: together, no veils, no barriers, just verity unsheathed like a lustrous sword. Armie shuts the door behind them with a faultlessly timed kick of his leg and Timothée finds his emotional eyes and thinks: _now, now, now_.

He knows that whoever he is now is entirely different from the person that he will be when he wakes up in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be blatant, the next chapter will be sex. All sex. All of it. I wasn't in the headspace for it tonight but you have been promised sex and it is coming.


End file.
